When certain monthly events didn't occur as usual at the end of June, I started to panic. Most married 31-year old women would be happy in that situation, but not me. I take care of baby cats and dogs, not human babies. I have neither interest in nor patience for them.

Anyway, when I realized that I was late, I added "pregnancy test" to my grocery store shopping list. Unfortunately, after breezing through the fresh produce, deli, and seafood sections, I discovered that they kept that type of product behind the counter. There was just no way I was going to walk up there and ask for a pregnancy test. I may be married and 31, but I felt as horribly guilty as a teenager. I continued the shopping trip but decided to hit up the Rite-Aid on my way home.

After walking through all of the aisles of Rite-Aid, I found pregnancy tests right up against and under the pharmacy counter. I kept my head down, grabbed a box, and made my way to the register. As I walked to the counter I started to wonder if they were a high-theft item--maybe because people are too embarrassed to walk up to the counter with them? Huh, not me! I have no issues bringing a pregnancy test up to the register! Just don't make me ask the pharmacist for one and we'll be alright.

About This Product
I grabbed the E.P.T. Certainty Pregnancy Test from the shelf because I was beyond nervous. I figured a test that would show either a positive + or a negative - would be the kind of definitive answer that I required in my state of mind.

This E.P.T. test claims that it can give you results up to 5 days before a missed period. I'm guessing that only the truly hopeful would shell out the money to check things out before Mother Nature's free test. The company also states that the test results are 99% accurate on the day of the missed event.

To use the E.P.T. Pregnancy Test, you can either place the stick (cap removed obviously) into your urine stream for 5 seconds or immerse into a cup of urine for up to 20 seconds. A positive plus sign means you are pregnant while a minus negative sign means you aren't. The instructions make a very big point of stating that you should never hold the stick test-side up EVER as it can skew results. They also suggest using this product with your first morning urine if you are testing before your missed date.

Using This Product
Because I was fairly sure that I was testing after the "due date", I used this thing in the middle of the day. It was easy to use, though the 2 minute waiting period was absolutely nerve-wracking. As the moisture moved through the test wick, it turned the whole thing light blue. The test window is supposed to show a "-" or "+" sign while the second "control" window should show a vertical line to demonstrate that the product is working properly.

I'm not going to lie. I watched the E.P.T. Pregnancy Test for the entire 2 minutes required for results. I watched the wave of light blue move through the test and control windows. The vertical line in the control window became visible almost immediately. And the test window? Oh, yeah, well I guess that faint horizontal line is a negative result.

Three more E.P.T. tests later, the results are all still negative. I am certainly happy to get four negative results, but I think I'd be a bit more confident if the negative minus sign was darker and more easily visible. At first I thought maybe it was a questionable result. Now I just think that this test could be improved by making the negative result a bit darker.

Overall Opinion
Hey, any pregnancy test that gives me four consecutive negative results should be a winner in my book, right? Well, this product is very easy to use and gives results in just 2 minutes with a 99% accuracy rate on the day of an expected period. I'm not all that jazzed about the faint negative line that E.P.T. Pregnancy Tests produce, but I certainly prefer them to easy-to-read plus signs.

Recommended: Yes